The Renewal of Islamic Law: Muhammad Baqer as-Sadr, Najaf and the Shi'i International

by Chibli Mallat

• ISBN13: 9780521531221
• ISBN10: 0521531225
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2004-01-29
• Publisher: Cambridge University Press

Summary

This is the first comprehensive study of the life and works of Muhammad Baqer as-Sadr - an Iraqi scholar who made an important contribution to the renewal of Islamic law and politics in the contemporary Middle East. Executed in 1980, Sadr was the most articulate thinker and a major political actor in the revival of Shi'i learning, which placed Najaf in Southern Iraq at its centre. Dr Chibli Mallat examines the intellectual development of Sadr and his companions who included Ruhullah al-Khumaini and assesses Sadr's innovative approaches to the study of law, economics and banking. The author convincingly demonstrates how Sadr's ideas and activities were influential in the rise of political Islam across the Middle East and played an important part in the Iranian revolution of 1979.

Table of Contents

Acknowledgements

Note on transliteration and dates

General introduction: The law in the Islamic renaissance and the role of Muhammad Baqer as-Sadr

Part I. Islamic Law and the Constitution: 1. Archetypes of Shi'i law

2. On the origins of the Iranian constitution: Muhammad Baqer as-Sadr's 1979 treatises

3. The first decade of the Iranian constitution: problems of the least dangerous branch

Part II. Islamic Law, 'Islamic Economics' and the Interest-Free Bank: 4. Law and the discovery of 'Islamic economics'

5. Muhammad Baqer as-Sadr and Islamic banking

Conclusion.